Lorain banks report counterfeit bills being cashed in businesses

LORAIN — Local banks have reported an influx of several hundreds of dollars worth of counterfeit $50 bills being cashed in businesses throughout the city, Lorain police say.

According to Sgt. Michael Failing, police were alerted by an area bank — that he declined to reveal — Thursday that it had been receiving the “high quality” counterfeit bills over two days.

The bank then alerted other banks in the area of the incident, he said.

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The counterfeits have been passed at dollar stores, gasoline stations and More for Less outlets, Failing said.

“The bills are of high quality, so the businesses are not catching them,” he said.

When businesses marked the bills in store, the markings did not show up, Failing said. It wasn’t known the bills were counterfeit until the banks ran them through the machines.

“Usually, they’re not as good quality and come from the computer printers,” he said of counterfeit bills. “Usually, you can’t get good enough paper, and you can feel the weight of the bills and pick it up immediately.”

Although Failing explained police do not know the source of the counterfeits yet, he said it is usually more than one person distributing them.

This is not the first time counterfeit cash has been distributed in Lorain. According to Failing, there was an incident four months ago where $20 counterfeit bills were distributed, but it was at a smaller scale and the identical serial numbers allowed police to quickly learn they were counterfeit.

“These are 50s, which is kind of unusual because everyone’s marking and checking for bills nowadays,” Failing said. “For some reason, they’re getting through.”

The incident is still under investigation and detectives will be checking the video tapes for leads on who is responsible, he said.

Police are working to alert business owners to be wary of accepting $50 bills at this time.

“We’re wanting to put an alert out that whoever is doing it, is passing a bunch of them,” he said of the bills. “If I were (the business owners), I wouldn’t take a $50 bill right now.”

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Samah covers Oberlin, Westlake, Sheffield, and crime and cops. She loves all things Cleveland. Reach the author at sassad@morningjournal.com
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